General Bloggystyle – Terribly Happy Bloggystylehttp://terribly-happy.com
More happy than terrible, promise.Fri, 16 Nov 2018 19:01:40 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.8At ‘One Page Salon’http://terribly-happy.com/2018/11/at-one-page-salon/
http://terribly-happy.com/2018/11/at-one-page-salon/#respondFri, 16 Nov 2018 19:01:40 +0000http://terribly-happy.com/?p=13432 This is a piece I read in front of an audience at last week’s “One Page Salon” at the North Door in Austin. Thanks so much to Owen Egerton for the invite. It’s going to be all right. I can tell from your face that you’re not so sure if that’s true, so […]

This is a piece I read in front of an audience at last week’s “One Page Salon” at the North Door in Austin. Thanks so much to Owen Egerton for the invite.

It’s going to be all right.

I can tell from your face that you’re not so sure if that’s true, so this is supposed to be reassuring. It’s all right. You’re going to be OK.

Unless something happens. Or things don’t work out. That’s definitely possible. Things go wrong for people all the time. They make a wrong turn, some barely-there decision, and suddenly they’re neck deep in manure. Not real manure, figurative manure. Do you know much manure you’re need for it to be up to your neck in literal manure? Even if you’re short? That sounds expensive. And trust me, you don’t have money to be spending on that right now.

Hey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean you can’t afford shit. I just meant you probably shouldn’t be spending money right now on THAT MUCH SHIT.

We’re getting way off track here.

So. Things seem a little weird. I get that. Maybe recapping will help.

You got divorced. Pretty quickly. After being married a really long time. That has to be jarring. The not-being married part. And you bought a house. Buying a house is a huge, ridonk headache, but you did it and now you live in that house and it even has pretty plants and a beautiful patio. Well done.

But then you stopped co-hosting a podcast you loved, one you’d been doing for five years and that stung a little. And, related: you stopped doing the podcast because you took a buyout and left a job you’d been at for 21 years. 21 years! That’s half your life! Wow! And now you’re freelancing, which is a very nice way of saying you’re an unemployed writer. Self-employed. Self-employed sounds better than unemployed or underemployed.

That’s lot of stuff that happened. And see, I think the problem — not that there’s a problem, things will be fine! — is that most people deal with stuff like that over a period of a few years, but you went and did all that in like three months. Some people have a mid-life crisis, you had … like… a midlife Cuban Missile Crisis.

But it’s going to be OK. Unless it’s not, but let’s not think about that.

You’re worried about money, but that’s never been your problem. You hustle, you work hard, you’ll make do. You’re worried that you don’t know what to do next. But remember all those days you sat in an office wishing you weren’t sitting there and feeling like you were wasting your time? At least you can waste your time on your own couch now. That’s an improvement, right?

You’re worried that you have stopped doing the thing that defined you, that everybody knew you for, the thing that gave you worth.

]]>This just happened. I’m getting an oil change at an auto dealership. Reading the newspaper. A woman also waiting comes by where I’m sitting with two small empty water bottles and says, “Please tell me you’re recycling these.” After a few seconds I realize she thinks I work here. Ok fine. Understandable mistake.

20 minutes later, she walks back to me, without saying a word, and starts pawing through my stack of newspapers I BROUGHT FROM HOME as I stare at her. She walks off with two sections and sits down. She still has them. I was done with them, but WHAT THE HELL LADY?!

When people ask me what I think the best future business model is for newspapers, I will answer, “monetizing the silent acquisition of newspapers at auto dealerships by bored, presumptuous recycling nuts.”

Travel is a kind of transformational magic where the disorientation of being somewhere else can help you step out of your own skin. At least that’s been my experience.

In Vermont I ran my first half marathon. I was dead last out of more than 200 runners but I finished under 3 hours (I am slow) after having only run a 5K before. You can see from the before and after pics how different in felt.

Sometimes I take on more than I think I can handle and surprise myself by just making it through. This was one of those cases — around mile 6 or 7 I didn’t think finishing was possible but my coach wouldn’t let me give up. I walked a lot and I pushed through back spasms and foot pain and exhaustion. But I made it.

There was also a tough but very rewarding hike up Camel’s Hump, a beautiful kayak run, so much cheese and maple syrup and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and OMG the Alchemist beer. I’m not even a beer guy but Vermont has some beer magic happening.

It was beautiful and magical and memorable. And the weather and changing leaves: incredible. I’d like to visit again.

Without her, there would never have been a “Statesman Shots” and I wouldn’t have wanted to take on either show without her laughter, her talent and her can-do spirit. Which is why it feels right that we’re saying goodbye to the show together. It has been the best kind of creative partnership and I hope we brought the best out of each other. We’ll be on a couple more episodes through ACL Fest with Addie but you can hear our goodbye bonus episode below or on your favorite podcast app.

Thanks to all our guests, our newsroom heroes who said yes again and again when they could have easily said no and to all of you who listened, who shared and who helped make our little dream of a fun Austin podcast a reality.

A bunch of many years ago, I got an internship at the Austin newspaper. That internship turned into a job and then the job into a career and I find myself 21 years later looking at the exit sign and beginning a long, long set of goodbyes.

My last day is Sept. 7. I’m still not 100% sure what my involvement is going forward, but I’m hoping to still contribute to the podcast and the paper. And I’m going to be super pissed if the wonderful staffers I work with don’t stay in touch. Not getting to see them is the biggest bummer, the part I’m least looking forward to in this move. (And insurance! Anybody know where I can get some decent freelancer insurance? I like my teeth!)

People talk about not getting too wrapped up in a job, about not feeling like you should owe them anything but what you do for the paycheck. But this is a place that has kept me and my family fed and happy for so long, that put my damn face up on a billboard by the highway for the whole city to see, that let me take ridiculous flights of fancy with articles I never thought would actually get printed because they were so dumb, that let me jump from job to job and keep doing outside projects all the while, that allowed me to CREATE NEW THINGS that didn’t exist before. That’s where I got the most joy here, making new things and launching them with a team of passionate coworkers and seeing if they could thrive. I hope to be doing a lot more than that in this new life I’m starting.

I have loved my Statesman family and I’m going to miss it so much. But in the end, it just felt like, for me, it’s time to go. I will keep reading and watching. I’ll keep championing the great work that is done here.